I am a little confused about this question, and I'd appreciate some tips, books to read, articles, and what you guys usually do for Conditioning and Maturation ? At the end of fermentation of all of my batches I usually put the beer in half temperature that the beer was in fermentation and left it at least 3 weeks cleaning up the flavor and aroma. But my question is, is there a rule of thumb for maturation ? how much time is it necessary to clean up and how it depends on the type of the beer ? what do you usually do ?
I "keg-condition" my beers. After primary fermentation, I transfer to a keg, add priming sugar, and store the beer at room temperature for one to four weeks depending on the style. Heavier beers condition longer. One advantage of this is that the beer conditions and carbonates at the same time.
It can vary with beer style, yeast strain, fermenting temp... But 2-4 weeks is usually plenty. Maybe really high abv beers would need more.
For several years I left all of my beers in the fermenter for at least 3 weeks, believing that it improved them. I still believe that, if the fermentation was lacking, extended conditioning helps to reduce some of the ill affects. After reading a few articles from trusted sources stating that maturation is complete at the end of primary fermentation, I changed my procedure. Once the krausen drops and the beer begins to drop clear, I now cold crash for a few days and keg. I find that my ales are usually very close to their peak as soon as they are fully carbonated, which generally coincides with them becoming almost brilliant. This translates as grain to glass in about 12 to 16 days as a rule. I do fine with gelatin and quick carbonate. My few lagers, mostly fermented at ale temperatures, have taken a few days longer to reach the same quality.
I ferment pretty much in the same vein as Bob here pretty quick grain to glass turn arounds I recon cold crashing once FG is stable helps to speed up settling time it add a week if I couldn't crash my beer.
